


Interrogation

by against_stars



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Gen, playing bad cop without a good cop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 15:36:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20066395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/against_stars/pseuds/against_stars
Summary: Commander Amell questions the Warden-Constable responsible for the actions that drove Anders from the Wardens.Well. "Questions" might be a loose word, but "terrorizes" just sounds sounpleasant.





	Interrogation

**Author's Note:**

> Anders telling Hawke that the Wardens made him get rid of Ser Pounce, in addition to the between-games [short story](https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Anders_\(short_story\)) detailing his and Justice's merge, both paint a picture that _my_ Warden would never have allowed to happen. So clearly, someone else was responsible for it.

"Do you think you can get away with this just because you've got _Ferelden_ eating out of your hand? When the First Warden hears about this —"

"_If_," Commander Amell slices in. "_If_ the First Warden hears about this."

Sitting in front of the holding cells with her legs crossed, unladylike, one foot tapping idly through the air, her chin propped up in her palm as her elbow rests on the table beside her, everything about Amell's posture says attentive, but bored with it. Everything but her eyes, livewire-bright and unblinking.

"So who paid you?" she asks, flicking out the words as casual as toeing a bit of mud off her boot. The Orlesian Warden-Constable glowers, but says nothing. "You might have betrayed the Wardens for free, I suppose, but I wouldn't want to be so uncharitable as assume you're _that_ stupid."

"I never betrayed the Wardens," the constable snaps. The last word is delivered in a puff of steam as the temperature in the holding cells plummets abruptly, hoarfrost climbing down the iron bars.

"Didn't you?" Amell asks, icy and unmoving. Her breath doesn't fog in the air. "Didn't you strike a deal with the Chantry, to put one of their loyal little Templars through the Joining in order to sic them on a fellow Warden? Didn't you ensure that the Templar would always be assigned to that Warden's squad, constantly hounding him, driving him away? Didn't you put the claim of the Chantry above my command? Above the laws of the Wardens?"

The constable's jaw is set, mulish, and Amell tilts her head. "Who would have been next, after Anders? Would you have turned on Velanna? Elaine? Nikolas? How many of our mages were you going to let them kill?" One corner of her mouth turns up, the tiniest smirk. "Was _I_ on your list?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"That's fine," Amell says, with a wave of her hand. "We're already going through your things. Anything that connects you to your employers will be found."

"And when you find nothing?" The constable's chin is high, but there's a flicker of something uncertain behind the eyes.

"I'll make something up," she says coolly. The constable looks startled that she'd admit it so readily, and Amell smiles. "Oh, I'm sorry, were you under the impression that I was going to be fair? Reasonable? Goodness, no. If you don't tell me who in the Chantry hired you to do this, I'll have to assume that any one of them did it. Then I'll pick a Chantry, and go from there."

A skeptical sound grates out of the constable's throat. "You're just going to start wiping out Chantries?"

"Don't be silly," Amell says gently, like she's soothing a child. "I'm well aware that the average sister doesn't have access to the kind of funds necessary to bribe a Warden. I'll start with the clerics, of course. Then the mothers."

"You're a monster." The constable spits through the bars, but it evaporates before it clears the air between them.

Amell's smile widens. "My whole life. Should have thought about that before you put a knife in my back."

The constable is shaking now, but whether it's from fear or the frigid air around them is impossible to tell. "The Wardens will get thrown out of Ferelden again, and you'll be executed, just like the last commander who went above her station and started harboring _abominations_."

"But you see," says Amell, ever so patient, "Commander Dryden made rather a lot of noise doing what she did, quite by necessity. I'm not going to do this for attention. I'm going to do it so you'll know, in here, that every time you see me, another one is dead. Maybe the one who hired you, maybe someone innocent. I don't particularly care which. That part is up to you."

"And how do you expect to hide what you've done to me, to my men?" The constable's fingers, clenched around the bars, are pale at the knuckles.

"Hide what?" Amell asks, sounding genuinely confused. "When I left to meet with the First Warden, I was told that the Orlesian branch would be sending a squad of ensigns along with a constable to lead while I was away, but it turns out they _never arrived_."

She finally stands, chair scraping the stone floor, and gives the constable a cheerful little wave before she strides out of the room.

Nathaniel opens the door to let her out of the building, and shuts it behind them. "Was any of that true?" he asks, once there's a good deal of courtyard space between them and the cells, his voice low. "Are we really going to —"

Cosette's laughter is bright and sparkling. "Goodness, no. Killing Chantry mothers one by one? What a colossal waste of time!"

Not terribly reassured by that answer, Nathaniel's brows knit. "Then... what _are_ we going to do?"

Sobering immediately, Cosette actually looks like the commander she's been made: head high, eyes steely. "Anders' body wasn't with Kristoff's and those Templars, so they must be somewhere. First we make sure they're both safe. _Then_ we deal with the Chantry."


End file.
